Jeff Chambers, CESD faculty scientist and professor of geography at UC Berkeley, has proposed an app that would pull weather satellite data together to help California quickly detect wildfire hot spots and alert emergency responders. His study used data from last October’s Camp Fire and is published as a preprint article in the online journal…
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Environmental scientists and engineers came together Thursday, May 9, at a workshop to share research taking place across Berkeley relevant to “Fire in the Environment.” The workshop covered a range of key topics, including the expected impact of climate change on future fires; wildfire as a natural part of California’s environment; and cutting-edge technologies that…
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When there are multiple factors at play in a situation that is itself changing, such as an El Niño winter in a changing climate, how can scientists figure out what is causing what? EESA researchers have developed an advanced statistical method for quantifying and visualizing changes in environmental systems and easily picking out the…
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Susan Hubbard, Associate Laboratory Director of the Earth & Environmental Sciences Area and senior scientist at Berkeley Lab, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a 239-year old honorary society that recognizes accomplished scholars, scientists and artists in academia, the humanities, arts, business, and government. She is one of four Berkeley Lab scientists…
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The San Francisco Bay Area has been pummeled this winter by storms packed with moisture from atmospheric rivers. Formed when atmospheric water vapor is pushed across the Pacific Ocean by strong winds, atmospheric rivers deliver much of the Bay Area’s precipitation. The City and County of San Francisco (CCSF) is partnering with experts from…
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By adapting scaling formulas that are traditionally used to diagnose the overall behavior of extreme rainfall events in a warming climate, atmospheric scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Irvine have demonstrated that the potential exists for these formulas to capture the dynamics of individual rainstorms globally. Heavy rainstorms that can cause floods,…
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EESA scientists who represent the Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments–Tropics (NGEE-Tropics) and AmeriFlux Management Project (AMP) teams recently convened the first joint international meeting to advance current plans for a Brazilian Flux Network. The workshop, “Brazilian Flux Networks Collaboration Workshop,” was held February 11-12 in Manaus, Brazil. A network of carbon flux stations for Brazil–the fifth largest…
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Anvil clouds are more than the beautiful giant umbrella shape for which they are known. Although they play a large role in Earth’s radiation balance, their effect on global warming is uncertain. New research from atmospheric scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley calls into question a conventional theory that these clouds…
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EESA research scientists are committed to identifying ways to adapt how water resources are used for energy production, irrigation, and other key societal needs in an energy-constrained and uncertain climate future. This World Water Day, an annual UN observance day that highlights the importance of freshwater, is focused on tackling the water crisis by addressing…
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Insects are critical contributors to ecosystem functioning, and like most living organisms their co-evolution with microbes has been essential to support these functions. While many insects are infamous for wreaking havoc wherever they roam, many thousands of species go quietly about their business, providing important services essential to healthy ecosystems using the innovative biochemistry of…
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